Capital Brewfest raises thousands for Rotary and SAGA

Cori Badgley, one of the event’s organizers, says about 50 percent of that will go to benefit the Rotary Club and the other 50 percent will go to SAGA, a nonprofit that supports hands-on learning in Alaska.

“It’s awesome,” Badgley said in a phone interview. “We’re very happy.”

Badgley noted that they had initially hoped Capital Brewfest would raise about $6,000.

“It’s just a testament to how wonderful this community is,” she said, adding, “The one comment we got was 'it’s great, but make it bigger!'”

Door tickets sold out within the first hour, and roughly 400 people crammed into the JACC building to sample beers from a variety of local and out-of-town breweries and distributors. They included Kassik’s Brewing, Alaskan Brewing, Broken Tooth Brewing, Denali Brewing, Haines Brewing, Kenai River Brewing, Midnight Sun Brewing, K&L and Special Imports of Alaska.

Andy Mills, a Rotarian volunteer and the chair organizer for the event, said that between all the different distributors, there were probably 70 different beers that were available for sampling.

Mills and Badgley, who are engaged, said they were involved in a brew festival in the Lower 48 that benefitted The Rotary Club, which spurred the idea to host one here in Juneau.

“It was so successful down south and so much fun to put on, that when we came home — this is home to both of us, we grew up here — we said let’s do it here,” Mills said.

The festival was the combined effort of Beverly Schoonover of SAGA, Rachael Juzeler of Alaskan Brewing and The Rotary Club of Juneau, informally known as the downtown club.

Anne Metcalfe originally thought to bring together SAGA and Rotary, with both organizations in different phases of planning a brew festival for charity.